grassroots-initiatives

13.1. Short description The project Time for Roof emerged in 2005 in the specific context of the years 2003-2005: the heat wave of the summer 2003 caused an enormous number of deaths of elderly people and highlighted the issue of isolation for elderly people living alone. Most French experiences of intergenerational cohabitation have been initiated…

14.1. Short description of the innovation For the past 20 years, the City of Nantes has been adopting policies in the field of child care services, in order not only to increase the number of places in collective child care facilities but also to achieve social objectives, such as social cohesion and reconciliation between work…

15.1. Short description of the innovation The network of “Lieux Collectifs de Proximité” (“neighbourhood community places” referred to hereafter as LCP) was created in April 2010 by seven local initiatives4 as a means to enable their development and sustainability, to professionalise their modes of working and secure long-term funding. In the framework of a collective…

Sustainability The innovations studied in Nantes are quite recent and still developing. Nevertheless, they have reached a certain level of stabilisation and are already overcoming difficulties. Therefore, we can already underline several key elements of sustainability. One important aspect is the integration in broad coalitions. Initial support from the local political sphere is often a…

Local background of the social innovations Emergence of local proactive welfare policies: As far as housing and child care policies are concerned, multi-level governance is the predominant situation with more or less shared responsibilities between national and local governments. It introduces complex institutional relations and potential tensions on issues such as priorities on the agenda…

Warsaw, as the capital city and a metropolitan area, is a city in which many foreigners stay, live, work and study. Warsaw and Mazowieckie Province are the main areas of concentrations of immigrants in Poland, assembling more than 30 per cent of all foreigners who have been issued a residence permit in our country. Their…

As already mentioned, after the political transformation in 1989, an attempt was made to return real estate property to pre-war owners or their successors, as well as to privatise the new buildings. This resulted in numerous problems, which are now influencing the situation of the inhabitants of the city. These factors led to the emergence…

One of the problems that Warsaw faces in terms of labour market policies is the insufficient use of young people’s potential, and a high risk of unemployment among them. About 50,000–60,000 people encounter problems of this kind in Warsaw. The employment services of Warsaw, coordinated by the Labour Office of the Capital City of Warsaw,…

Factors that influence local welfare policy in Warsaw include (1) historical heritage of the second world war and legal decisions made during 1944-90 (the period of so-called socialist rule); (2) present conflicts between the governing liberal party Civic Platform and parties in opposition: the populist Law and Justice party and the leftist Democratic Left Alliance…

Local background of the social innovations Innovation is defined in many ways by social scientists, people connected with business or technology. Shortly speaking, it is a way to improve the systems that already exist, making them better, faster and cheaper (Iuri and Kuhn 1998). What means “better, faster, cheaper” depends on the area of interest.…